(ZENIT News / Washington, 01.08.2024).- Through gifts to the Collection for the Church in Latin America, Catholics in the United States have an opportunity to support the Church’s mission in countries affected by poverty, political instability and natural disasters. The collection was founded in 1965 as a way for Catholics in the United States to express their unity and solidarity with Catholics in Central and South America and the islands of the Caribbean. Inspired by the Second Vatican Council, it recognizes spiritual bonds rooted in shared faith and history.
Bishop Daniel H. Mueggenborg of Reno, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on National Collections, encountered an Oklahoma priest in 1981 who was later martyred in Guatemala. “Blessed Stanley Rother ministered in Guatemala, even in the face of great danger because God had called him to love and care for Latin Americans in need,” Bishop Mueggenborg said. “Fr. Rother’s ministry to the poor threatened the interests of powerful people and it ultimately led to his death, but his heroic witness helped to inspire my own priestly vocation and my sense of solidarity with Catholics in Latin America. The Collection for the Church in Latin America is an opportunity for all of us to answer that same call. It may not cost us our lives, but a financial sacrifice, even a small one, will go towards impacting the lives of many.”
Last year the collection provided $6.2 million for more than 250 ministries in places where the Church cannot support itself without outside assistance. More than half the money supported pastoral needs, nearly 28% provided disaster relief and about 20% subsidized vocations and the formation of clergy and religious. A few examples are:
- In Haiti, which has severe soil depletion, 330 lay leaders integrated Catholic social teaching on ecology and care for creation with practical instruction on improving their soil and water and on planting trees to prevent erosion.
- In the Diocese of Choluteca, Honduras, the collection aided migrants who have settled there from other Latin American nations and from as far as Asia and Africa. This part of a wider diocesan social outreach that includes evangelizing the poor with respect and social sensitivity.
- In the Dominican Republic, 18 young women who entered the religious community of the Order of Saint Clare are receiving support as they discover new approaches to praying for the world from their cloistered convent.
- In Ecuador, the collection helped to subsidize the September 2024 International Eucharistic Congress, which drew participants from 40 nations.
- In the Archdiocese of San Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, a grant supported social ministry that ranges from helping parishes convert cooking oil into low-cost fuel to a World Day of the Poor festival for the community with food, music, and a Eucharistic procession through impoverished neighborhoods.
“With support from parishioners like you, the Collection for the Church in Latin America helps countless poor and marginalized people to experience God’s love and share it with their neighbors,” Bishop Mueggenborg said. “That is what Blessed Stanley Rother went to Latin America to do, and it is what Jesus calls all of us to do.”
Many dioceses will take this collection on January 25-26. The online giving site #iGiveCatholicTogether also accepts funds for this collection.
For more information see https://www.usccb.org/committees/church-latin-america.
Thank you for reading our content. If you would like to receive ZENIT’s daily e-mail news, you can subscribe for free through this link.
